What is CRM?

What is a CRM System?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a term used to describe the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM helps businesses to understand their customers’ needs and behaviours and therefore modify their business operations to improve the service provided to customers.

The basic concepts of a CRM are to:

Capture relevant business data to provide marketing and business intelligence about your customers;

Easily share information including notes and history with your team so they can provide customers with a seamless experience no matter which team member they communicate with;

Ensure actions that need to be done for your customers are completed on time, by enabling you to monitor and manage the team’s activities.

ACT! is the world’s leading Contact and Customer Relationship Management software. It provides one convenient system to manage your entire customer relationship. This is achieved by uniting programs people regularly use such as client database, contact history, diary and reminder system, To Do lists, email and mail merge programs all within the one easy to use program. ACT! provides the tools to enable your team to deliver memorable service, exceed customer expectations and as a result, increase your profits.

How can CRM help my Business?

Most businesses are all about the customer. They have to be to survive in today’s competitive environment. CRM is a tool that enables you to effectively manage your customers which is the key to profitability.

Easily manage your customers: Whether you are a small business or a large organization, you need information on your customers. As well as basic information like their name and phone number you need to understand their requirements in order to provide a superior service to make them come back. ACT! can be customized to record the data that is relevant to your business. Staff are able to quickly find contact information to personalize their service which can make all the difference in today’s competitive market.

Share important information with colleagues: If you have remote offices or staff who work out of the office, you can still share all the data. With synchronization or remote web access, everyone can see the same data. You can also prevent other people from seeing certain information eg. other sales people checking your sales opportunities.

Improve productivity and profits: Our experience shows about 30% improvement in productivity alone! By consolidating all your customer information into one easy to access program it saves you time, reduces paperwork and provides your team with instant access to information when you need it. Each person can schedule calls, meetings and to do lists and set alarms to ensure they don’t get missed.

Higher Productivity = Higher Profits

Increase customer retention: Over 65% of customers who leave a business do so because they feel the business isn’t interested in them or doesn’t provide the service they expected. You spend a fortune getting new customers but that doesn’t mean you’ve got them for life. How many future sales and how much profit are you missing out on? Maintaining loyal clients and increasing profits is all about building relationships. Managing a lasting and profitable relationship with your customers and prospects is based on regular communication, an understanding of their needs, and timely responses. All this can be easily achieved using a CRM solution such as ACT!.

Easily monitor your sales team’s activity: Do you worry about whether your sales team are performing? ACT! gives you peace of mind knowing you have the systems to quickly monitor and manage the activities of your sales team. It makes them accountable. No more missed opportunities or leads that are not followed up, improving your service levels and increasing your sales. ACT! will ensure your team is consistently delivering the highest level of service, setting you apart from your competition.

Better return for your marketing dollar: By targeting the clients and prospects that have shown an interest in specific products or services, you can cut back on expensive advertising that may not be working and focus on the clients who want to buy. Keep in touch with easy to create newsletters, prepare a personalized letter to a select group of clients or send a personalized email to thousands of contacts in a matter of minutes! And it’s easy! See Email Marketing

Reporting Intelligence: You can use the standard reports in ACT! or have detailed reports created especially for your business. From basic contact list reports to measuring service performance…you have power at your fingertips!